Questions about new Office 365 integration feature

[DefyJason]

I have the integration set up and my Azure AD users were synchronized over to 3CX. But I have some questions that I could not find in the announcements, and I think these would be good to add to documentation.

Extensions for imported users from O365 were defaulted to 001, 002, 003, etc. I tried to set the Office Phone field in Azure AD to the number and extension such as +1 123-456-7890x123, but the extension does not appear to sync back to 3CX and update from 001 to the correct extension entered in Azure AD. How is this done?

How often does 0365 data sync to 3CX?

Can I force the 0365 sync to run on demand while testing the integration?

Can a user's Azure AD Department map to a Group in 3CX?

Is there a way to set 3CX specific options from Azure AD such as enabling call recording and rights from a (custom) field in AD? Ideally, we could fully provision users with permissions, web client acces, etc, all from Azure AD and never having to edit the extension for this in 3CX.

 

[Evolute IT]

Extensions for imported users from O365 were defaulted to 001, 002, 003, etc. I tried to set the Office Phone field in Azure AD to the number and extension such as +1 123-456-7890x123, but the extension does not appear to sync back to 3CX and update from 001 to the correct extension entered in Azure AD. How is this done?
Unfortunately there is currently no way to specify a range of extension to be used by the integration. You can vote for this feature in the Ideas section.

How often does 0365 data sync to 3CX?
This is done automatically on any user creation, modification or deletion. An initial sync is done when configured.

Can I force the 0365 sync to run on demand while testing the integration?

This is in no way official but I think going to the Office 365 page triggers a refresh with the "Testing real-time notifications" alert.

Can a user's Azure AD Department map to a Group in 3CX?
Unfortunately no. This is however a very good point.

Is there a way to set 3CX specific options from Azure AD such as enabling call recording and rights from a (custom) field in AD?
Again, no. This integration is still very new and limited. There's much more we could do but give them time. In the meantime, I suggest you use CSVs to export/import your extensions.

 

[TechVerge]

This needs some work asap, it's fine for installs with a tiny user set, but thats it.

A clients AD is generally filled with all it's ex staff with sign-in disabled. Any company with a high user count & say contractors/high staff turnover for instance is just a administration nightmare x 3.

It needs far more options than all/except/these - If you do all, you get all the resources, admin accounts, everything. The selection list is then presented in lots of 10, then page selections.

We had a client with 200 entries, only 80 are coming through to the system - it took forever just to do the user sync. Unless mistaken we have to now go to Contact Sync - do it all over again, then Calendar.

The client admins are not impressed with the amount of work required to add/remove a user.

All you need to avoid all of the above is to be able to select user group/s in each sync category, at the very least search for users in a group for selection, MS graph just needs the GROUP query approved so it's not like the data is not easily accessible.

The automatic overwrite is an issue also, this needs some extension mapping from AD/365.

Please look into making this integration usable.

 

[DefyJason]

Agreed. It will be a nice feature when ready, but it really needs a lot of work to make it practical. In testing with an Azure AD of just 6 users, all the O365 integration really does is import the names from AD. I have to go back into 3CX and assign the correct extensions since the O365 sync counts sequentially (001, 002, 003, etc.), configure rights, provision phones, groups, queues - really set up everything myself anyway.

If we could truly set this all via AD properties then it would be a nice time-saver, but as of right now it is much faster to simply import from a CSV for just a few users, let alone dozens or hundreds.

 

[Jeff Koertzen]

We have not yet deployed 3CX, but I upgraded to v16 in my final deployment preparations. I liked the idea of the Office365 integration, but I'm not too happy with how it was implemented.

1. I should have the ability to turn off welcome notifications for these users upon creation. As listed above, since it's assigning extensions starting with 0, I HAVE to be able to edit that extension as well as assign a DID before I am comfortable with the user receiving the welcome email.
2. I need the ability to NOT delete an extension upon deletion in O365. We regularly keep extensions and forward to the user's manager because we continue to receive calls on that number after the user leaves. It runs against all business principles to delete that extension just because the user no longer has access to Office 365. Alternatively, instead of deleting an extension, we should have the ability to indicate we don't want the extension deleted but to remove the user information instead.
3. A notification or report should be generated for each user created or deleted with a hyperlink to the created accounts. Admins should not have to go looking through the system to identify the new accounts or just read it in the logs. We should be able to act on it from a report.

Also, on a separate note, what do I need to do here to get access to the "IDEAS" forum to post ideas?

 

[edossantos]

1. I should have the ability to turn off welcome notifications for these users upon creation. As listed above, since it's assigning extensions starting with 0, I HAVE to be able to edit that extension as well as assign a DID before I am comfortable with the user receiving the welcome email.
2. I need the ability to NOT delete an extension upon deletion in O365. We regularly keep extensions and forward to the user's manager because we continue to receive calls on that number after the user leaves. It runs against all business principles to delete that extension just because the user no longer has access to Office 365. Alternatively, instead of deleting an extension, we should have the ability to indicate we don't want the extension deleted but to remove the user information instead.
3. A notification or report should be generated for each user created or deleted with a hyperlink to the created accounts. Admins should not have to go looking through the system to identify the new accounts or just read it in the logs. We should be able to act on it from a report.

Thanks for your feedback.

Also, on a separate note, what do I need to do here to get access to the "IDEAS" forum to post ideas?

As explained here, only Gold, Platinum, Titanium Partners and Premier Customers can contribute ideas. The entire population of the forum will still be able to vote.

 

[phintec]

Just to add another comment, I recently contacted support to find out why Contact Sync was not working for a user which we recently enabled it. The response came back that since the Office 365 User Principal Name (UPN) contained upper case letters and was not all lower case, that it would not sync. Sync required all UPN's to be lower case. When user admins have the ability to add users to either Office 365 or synced via Active Directory they may use capitalization for convenience or merely a mistake.
Also, not surprisingly, Office 365 is not happy about trying to save or change the email address for an account when the only difference is capitalization. I am finding it difficult to make these changes, to say the least.

Finally, the integration does not take into account that there is an existing Extension with the same email address during a sync which leads to duplicate Extensions.

A great first step but hardly what I would expect to see released for use.

Todd.

 

[Jeff Koertzen]

As explained here, only Gold, Platinum, Titanium Partners and Premier Customers can contribute ideas. The entire population of the forum will still be able to vote.

Thanks, after I posted the question, I figured that must be the case. I will work with our 3CX Partner to post any future ideas. Thanks.